FFF-You Just Never Really Know (ICE)

It was a normal Friday afternoon, the day was going smoothly and in an instant it changed. My coworker was called to the clinic for one of her students. I packed up my food and followed right behind her after a few minutes. I walked into one of my scariest moments as an educator. There was a child having a severe asthma attack. I had never witnessed an attack this severe. There was vomiting, choking, moments of unconsciousness, and this girl was FIGHTING to breathe. In this moment, I snapped out of my daze as a mom and jumped into my role as an administrator. Somewhere in the chaos, it was communicated that a parent had not been contacted as we waited (what seemed like forever) for the ambulance to transport the student. The numbers that were on file were all either disconnected or the wrong number. We found out she had a sister on campus and I ran (thank goodness for all the running we do in Crossfit) to her classroom and tried to get a contact number from her. Without giving her sister too much information I asked, “How would you get in contact with your mother if there was an absolute emergency?’ She had no response. I was completely dumbfounded. I am a school administrator in a HIGH SCHOOL. I could not believe this girl could not remember her mother’s number. Needless to say, the student was transported and EVENTUALLY (about an hour after the initial onset of the attack) her mother made it to the hospital. I don’t even know( or care to know) what the excuse was.

I then remembered last spring when there was an incident in the parking lot and a staff member had a seizure walking to her car. We found her phone, but it had a password lock and her contact information on her emergency card in the clinic had changed. I don’t even remember how her husband was contacted. That was also a day when I went home counting my blessings.

LESSON LEARNED:
I won’t even go in depth about how Pumpkin and Husband have asthma and I knew that this student could have been either of them. What I will elaborate on is the fact that my emergency contact numbers are updated, I have no password lock on my phone (I go back and forth with this one.), and my emergency contacts are identified in my phone with the appendix, ICE (In Case of Emergency). I have my phone with me at all times and pray that one of those ICE contact numbers will never need to be dialed. But, one never knows and all we can do is attempt to be prepared. After your read this post, please update your emergency contact info everywhere.